Philip B. K. Potter

Philip B. K. Potter is professor of politics and founding director of the National Security Policy Center in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. He is also a university expert with the National Ground Intelligence Center, US Army INSCOM.

Potter’s latest book with Chen Wang, Zero Tolerance: Repression and Political Violence on China’s New Silk Road, was released by Cambridge University Press in October 2022. Drawing on extensive original data, Potter and Wang demonstrate that China’s harsh policies are driven by deep insecurities about the stability of the regime and its claim to legitimacy. These perceived threats to core interests drive the ferocity of the official response to Uyghur aspirations. The result is harsh repression, sophisticated media control, and selective international military cooperation. The implications of the regional conflict are, however, global.

Potter’s 2015 book with Matthew Baum, War and Democratic Constraint, was named a CHOICE academic title. Potter has published in a wide array of peer-reviewed and popular outlets. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Politics and the Journal of Global Security Studies and is an associate principal investigator for Time-Sharing Experiments in the Social Sciences (TESS). Potter has been a fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania.